Run-D.M.C.:

Trio consisting of the MCs Run (Joseph Simmons, b. 1964) and D.M.C. (Darryl McDaniels, b. 1964), and the DJ Jam Master Jay (Jason Mizell, b. 1965). Perhaps the most influential act in the history of rap music, they established a hard-edged, rock-tinged style that shaped the sound and sensibility of later rap music. Their raps were literate and rhythmically skilled, with Run and D.M.C. weaving their phrases together and sometimes even completing the last few words of each other’s lines.

Beastie Boys:

The first commercially successful white act in hip-hop. Their early recordings represent a fusion of the youth-oriented rebelliousness of hardcore punk rock—the style they began playing in 1981—with the sensibility and techniques of hip-hop.

Def Jam:

Co-founded in 1984 by the hip-hop promoter Russell Simmons and the musician-producer Rick Rubin. During the 1980s, Def Jam cross-promoted a new generation of artists, expanding and diversifying the national audience for hip-hop, and in 1986 became the first rap-oriented independent label to sign a distribution deal with one of the “Big Five” record companies, Columbia Records.

Public Enemy:

Founded in 1982, Public Enemy was organized around a core set of members who met as college students, drawn together by their interest in hip-hop culture and political activism. The group included the standard hip-hop configuration of two MCs—Chuck D (a.k.a. Carlton Ridenhour, b. 1960) and Flavor Flav (William Drayton, b. 1959)—plus a DJ—Terminator X (Norman Lee Rogers, b. 1966). It was augmented by a “Minister of Information” (Professor Griff, a.k.a. Richard Griffin) and by the Security of the First World (S1W), a cohort of dancers who dressed in paramilitary uniforms, carried Uzi submachine guns, and performed martial arts–inspired choreography.

M.C. Hammer (Stanley Kirk Burrell, b. 1962):

Rapper from Oakland, California; hit the charts in 1990 with Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ’Em,which held the Number One position for twenty-one weeks and sold over ten million copies, becoming the bestselling rap album of all time.

Vanilla Ice (Robert Van Winkle, b. 1968):

Ice’s first album, To the Extreme (1990), monopolized the Number One position for sixteen weeks in early 1991, selling seven million copies. When it was discovered that Van Winkle, raised in reasonably comfortable circumstances in a middle-class neighborhood, had essentially invented a gangster persona for himself, many fans turned theirbacks on him.

Ice-T (Tracy Marrow):

In 1987, he recorded the theme song for Colors, Dennis Hopper’s violent film about gang-versus-police warfare in South Central Los Angeles. Both the film and Ice-T’s raps reflected ongoing changes in southern California’s urban communities, including a decline in industrial production, rising rates of joblessness, the continuing effects of crack cocaine, and a concomitant growth of drug-related gang violence.

N.W.A. (Niggaz with Attitude):

Pioneered West Coast gangsta rap with the release of the album Straight Outta Compton. Their recordings expressed the gangsta lifestyle, saturated with images of sex and violence. The nucleus of the group was formed in 1986, when O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson (b. 1969), the product of a middle-class home in South Central Los Angeles, met Andre “Dr. Dre” Young (b. 1965), a sometime member of a local funk group called the World Class Wreckin’ Cru. They teamed up with Eric “Eazy-E” Wright (1973–95), a former drug dealer, and the three began working together as N.W.A., eventually adding D.J. Yella (Antoine Carraby) and M.C. Ren (Lorenzo Patterson) to the group.

Andre (Dr. Dre) Young:

The most influential and economically successful member of N.W.A. He founded an independent record label (Death Row/Interscope), cultivated a number of younger rappers, and continued to develop a distinctive hip-hop production style, christened “G-Funk” in homage to the P-funk style developed in the 1970s by George Clinton.

Snoop Doggy Dogg (Calvin Broadus, b. 1972):

Gangsta rapper born in Long Beach, CA, he was a  protégé of Andre “Dr. Dre” Young and collaborated on Dr. Dre’s 1992 album The Chronic. Snoop’s soft drawl and laid-back-but-lethal gangster persona were featured on Doggystyle,which debuted at the top of the album charts in 1993.

Sean “Puffy” Combs (a.k.a. Puff Daddy, P. Diddy):

CEO of the New York independent label Bad Boy Records.

Tupac (2pac) Shakur (1971–96):

Tragic victim of conflicts between East and West Coast factions within the hip-hop business. He was an up-and-coming star with Los Angeles-based Death Row Records when he was shot and killed in Las Vegas in 1996. 

The Notorious B.I.G. (Christopher Wallace, a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, 1972–97):

Worked with producer and rapper Sean “Puffy” Combs (a.k.a. Puff Daddy, P. Diddy). He was shot to death in Los Angeles in 1997.

Queen Latifah (Dana Elaine Owens, b. 1970):

The most important woman in the history of hip-hop, in terms of both her commercial success and her effectiveness in establishing a feminist beachhead on the male-dominated field of rap music.

Jello Biafra (Eric Boucher, b. 1959 in Boulder, Colorado):

The lead singer of the Dead Kennedys. Wrote songs with titles like “Holiday in Cambodia,” “California über Alles,” “Kill the Poor,” and “Chemical Warfare.”

Kurt Cobain (1967–94):

Singer and guitarist who founded the alternative rock band Nirvana. His recordings broke through to the commercial mainstream and popularized grunge rock. He shot himself in Seattle in 1994.

Krist Novoselic (b. 1965 in Compton, California):

Bassist for the Seattle-based alternative rock trio Nirvana.

Green River:

Formed in 1983, the band is often singled out as an originator of the “Seattle sound.” Their 1988 album Rehab Doll, released on Sub Pop, helped popularize grunge rock.

Ani DiFranco (b. 1970 in Buffalo, New York):

A folk singer dressed in punk rock clothing, DiFranco has spent her career resisting the lure of the corporate music business, releasing an album and playing upward of two hundred live dates every year, and building up a successful independent record label (Righteous Babe Records) and a substantial grassroots following.

Lauryn Hill (b. 1975):

Hip-hop artist whose work is a self-conscious alternative to the violence and sexism in the work of rap stars such as Dr. Dre, the Notorious B.I.G., and 2Pac Shakur. Her commitment to female empowerment builds on the ground-breaking example of Queen Latifah, but Hill raps and sings in her own distinctive voice.

k.d. lang (b. 1961 in Alberta, Canada):

Has always occupied a marginal position in the conservative world of country music. She began her career in 1982 as a Patsy Cline imitator, going so far as to christen her band the Reclines. lang never sat quite right with the Nashville establishment, who found her campy outfits (rhinestone suits and cat-eye glasses) and somewhat androgynous image off-putting.

Ralph Stanley (b. 1927 in Virginia):

Veteran of bluegrass music who was featured on the movie soundtrack for the Coen Brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? He and his brother Carter (1925–66) performed as the Stanley Brothers beginning in 1946 and produced a body of outstanding bluegrass recordings. After his brother’s death, Ralph Stanley continued his own career as the leader of the Clinch Mountain Boys. 

Alison Krauss (b. 1971 in Illinois):

A fiddling champion and bluegrass fan by age twelve, Krauss quickly went on to establish her credentials as a bandleader, vocalist, and producer, and as a valuable collaborator on numerous recordings by other artists. Her fine albums with her band Union Station demonstrate both her close connections to traditional bluegrass and her interest in creating a distinctive and original development of those connections.

King Sunny Adé:

Guitarist and leader of the Nigerian group the African Beats, whose 1982 album Juju Music sold over 100,000 copies and rose to Number 111 on Billboard’s album chart.

Ry Cooder (b. 1947 in Los Angeles):        

Singer and guitarist who produced Talking Timbuktu,which won the Grammy for Best World Music Recording in 1994. His career as a session musician and bandleader encompassed a wide array of styles, including blues, reggae, Tex-Mex music, urban folk song, Hawai’ian guitar music, Dixieland jazz, and gospel music.

Ali Farka Touré (b. 1950):

Guitarist and traditional praise singer (griot) from the West African nation of Mali. Touré’s style was directly influenced by American blues musicians such as John Lee Hooker, whose records he discovered after his career was established in Africa.

Eddie Vedder (b. 1966 in Chicago):

The singer for the Seattle-based alternative rock band Pearl Jam; he collaborated with Pakistani musician Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on the track “The Face of Love” from the album Talking Timbuktu.

Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan (1948–97):

Pakistani musician and a leading performer of qawwali, a genre of mystical singing practiced by Sufi Muslims in Pakistan and India. During the 1990s, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan became the first qawwaliartist to command a large international following.